TED is one of my favourite resources for inspiration and education. After watching a couple talks on social media, I decided to put together a small collection of these talks.
I have to start with Evan William’s talk on Twitter:
He talks about how Twitter evolved, and how they realized just how useful it was for real time events. There are a few comical moments in the talk, and he talks about how users really shaped Twitter, including the @username syntax, the retweets, the hash tags etc. It’s a good primer on what Twitter is, how it came to be, who’s using it and why.
The second video is more on etiquette and the use of smartphones. This kind of ties in to Michael Kwan’s post on setting your Social Media boundaries. Renny Gleeson talks about a “culture of availability” and how we allow people to be available. You’ve probably encountered a few of the scenarios that Renny showcases in this talk. At the end, he makes a request: Please, let’s make technology that makes us MORE human, not less.
Last, but definitely not least is the latest Social Media related talk given by Clay Shirky. He talks about why the Great Firewall of China didn’t work during the earthquake a few years ago when people were tweeting about it, how Obama’s campaign was the most imaginative use of social media ever, and why it worked so well.
Enjoy!
